Smoking Gun... NOM (National Organization for Marriage) Documents Expose their Anti-LGBTQ Movement Strategy

Wow.  These documents are remarkable.

As reported by Kevin Nix at the Human Rights Campaign site, on Monday of this week HRC got a hold of these unsealed documents from an ongoing investigation by the State of Maine into NOM's campaign finance activities.

With each page marked "CONFIDENTIAL," there were three strategies highlighted in the reporting so far, to drive a wedge between Gays and Blacks, a similar wedge between Gays and Latinos, and to side-swipe Obama as a "social radical."

Here are some details and some screen shots of the pdfs of the documents:

1,
The "Not A Civil Right" Project, with a million dollar budget in 2010:

"We aim to find, equip, energize and connect African-American spokespeople for marriage; to develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right.  No politician wants to take up and push an issue that splits the base of the party."

and

2,
The Latino Project, also with a budget of a million dollars:

"We can interrupt this process of [Latino] assimilation by making support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity."

and 3,
the section titled "Sideswiping Obama"

"Expose Obama as a social radial. Develop side issues to weaken pro-gay marriage political leaders and parties and develop an activist base of socially conservative voters. Raise such issues as pornography, protection of children, and the need to oppose all efforts to weaken religious liberty at the federal level. This is the mission of the American Principles Project."

"...the APP project wil develop young Hispanic spokesmen for traditional values."

And that project, too, had a $1,000,000 budget.


4,

There was also a section that was cut off in the documents, but that started as

5. Raising the Negatives on Homosexuality / Interrupting the Race Analogy

Ultimately we aim to raise the costs of identifying with gay marriage, and also raise the attractiveness of identifying with traditional marriage. But we also need to accomplish a sophisticated cultural objective: interrupt the attempt to equate gay with black, and sexual -"

That's where it cut off.

Page by page, these documents are stunning to read - it's a playbook for the opposition to not just prevent and roll back any existing Gay marriage, but to oppose and set back GLBTQ equality across all realms. The similarity to issues on the current GOP campaign trail (like Santorum's recent attack on pornography) are beyond just telling... these documents are the smoking gun.

These NOM documents are hard to read, but it's important to know the strategy being used against us.

Namaste,
Lee


The above quotes and screen captures were from:

1 NOM Deposition Exhibit 12: "National Strategy for Winning the Marriage Battle,"dated December 15, 2009 pdf. pg 25-26

2  NOM Deposition Exhibit 12: "National Strategy for Winning the Marriage Battle,"dated December 15, 2009 pdf. pg. 23-24

3   NOM Deposition Exhibit 28: "Marriage: $20 Million Strategy for Victory", pdf pg. 11

4    NOM Deposition Exhibit 28: "Marriage: $20 Million Strategy for Victory", pdf pg. 12

Gemini Bites - Teen Brother and Sister Twins Fall for the Same Guy

Gemini Bites by Patrick Ryan


Judy and Kyle are 16 year old twins. Kyle's just come out as gay, and is wondering if he'll ever know what it's like to date a guy. Judy is once again pretending so she can get what she wants, and this time it's that she's born-again... so she can land a boyfriend who heads his own Bible study.

Then their parents announce the family is taking in a fellow student for a month so he can finish school before moving away.

Garret is a mysterious goth loner, and both Judy and Kyle are falling for him...

Oh, and Garret claims he's a vampire.


"Gemini Bites" is a finalist for the 2012 Lambda Literary Award in the LGBT Children’s/Young Adult category. Add your review of "Gemini Bites" in comments!

Jenna Talackova Disqualified from the Miss Universe Canada Contest because she's Transgender: What You Can Do

Pageants and what they say about women (and what we as a culture value about women) have been a source of debate for a long time. 

On the one hand, detractors feel that having women parade around in bathing suits and heels, and then evening gowns, and then displaying performance-based talents to entertain an audience, and then answering questions about world peace with the male host smirking at how sometimes the answers are simplistic (with the implication being that the pretty contestant isn't maybe all that smart) sends the message that for women and girls, the most important thing is to look pretty.

On the other hand, there's been an effort by pro-pageant forces to re-frame the contests to be less about who's the most beautiful to where they're "scholarship competitions," with the focus on public speaking, and doing good in the world... all while still looking pretty in gown, bathing suit and heels.  So their message is that for women and girls, you should be pretty with a purpose.

So when Donald Trump's Miss Universe Canada competition found out that one of their contestants, Vancouver finalist Jenna Talackova, was a 23 woman who, though she always believed she was a woman, was born into a body that didn't match that, they kicked her out.

Now that Jenna does have a body that matches her female identity, and she's this beautiful blonde beauty pageant contestant, they've disqualified her because she wasn't born into that body.  Because she wasn't a "naturally born female."

Jenna Talackova

Jenna responded:

"All I can say is that they disqualified me because I'm not 'natural born,' she told the National Post. "[That] doesn't make sense because since I was conscious, I always felt this way."

Jenna recognized she was a girl from the age of four, and started hormone therapy when she was fourteen.  She refers to herself as "a woman, with a history."

Jenna's swimsuit pose

On Twitter she wrote:

"I'm disqualified, however I'm not giving up. I'm not going to just let them disqualify me over discrimination."

What can we do? 

You can sign this petition to let Donald Trump and his team know that this kind of discrimination is wrong!

So far, over 30,000 people have signed, demanding that Jenna be allowed to compete.

Let's stand up for Jenna, and our transgender community members!

Namaste,
Lee

Huntress - Teen Lesbian Fantasy with an Asian Mythology Twist

Huntress by Malinda Lo

Nature is out of balance in the human world. The sun hasn’t shone in years, and crops are failing. Worse yet, strange and hostile creatures have begun to appear. The people’s survival hangs in the balance.

To solve the crisis, the oracle stones are cast, and Kaede and Taisin, two seventeen-year-old girls, are picked to go on a dangerous and unheard-of journey to Taninli, the city of the Fairy Queen. Taisin is a sage, thrumming with magic, and Kaede is of the earth, without a speck of the otherworldly. And yet the two girls’ destinies are drawn together during the mission. As members of their party succumb to unearthly attacks and fairy tricks, the two come to rely on each other and even begin to fall in love. But the Kingdom needs only one huntress to save it, and what it takes could tear Kaede and Taisin apart forever.

"Huntress" is a finalist for the 2012 Lambda Literary Award in the LGBT Children’s/Young Adult category!  Add your review of "Huntress" in comments!

GSAs in the South of the USA - what's the reality?

Check out this really interesting article at BuzzFeed by Anna North about teens in the American South who have started Gay-Straight Alliances at their high schools.

The quotes from teens are really interesting,

[T]here are a lot more supportive people here than a northerner would expect to find. Much of the assumption from the North is that the whole of the South is this monolithically oppressive place full of rednecks and hillbillies who shoot gay people on sight. But it's really not that case. There are pockets of very supportive, loving people, allies and other LGBTQ people. And I'm very glad to have found and brought together those people at my high school.

-Dohyun Ahn, who started a Gay-Straight Alliance at Walton High School in Marietta, Georgia in 2009.

The South is really awful. It's not really easy anywhere, but it's particularly bad down here because of how thick the religious culture is. Church is expected of you, and if you don't go to church people sneer at you and start to gossip. I knew people in middle school who basically had to be in-the-closet atheists. So when a kid comes out, or at least tries to, the parents and teachers don't even have to tell the kid he's going to hell, because it's like they've trained their kids to say that in their place. It's pretty frightening, the religious conservatism. Obviously, not every Christian down here is evil, and there are a lot of gay Christians. It's just the militant and abusive Christians that make life for gay kids in public schools (no pun intended) hell.

-Ryan, a trans member of the GSA at the Alabama School of Fine Arts.

The article explores the choice these teens face when they finish high school - should they stay in the South, or leaving for more GLBTQ-accepting climes?  Some choose to leave, like Anne Stillwagon, who helped Dohyun Ahn start the GSA at Walton High School:

I haven't even considered staying in the south long-term. For college I'll be going to a much more open and affirming town in Ohio. Though I've lived in the south my whole life, I don't feel like it's a part of me at all. I don't identify with Southern culture, and don't feel a connection. East Cobb is not my home, it's "the place I live."

And others choose to stay, like Anna Turkett, who helped found the GSA at the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham.   Anna said,

"if everybody leaves, then there's no one left to be the liberal voice, the pro-LGBT voice."

The article's pretty hopeful, noting that the challenges of the climate in the South are actually leading teens to be more dedicated to making a difference.

It's an article well worth reading.

Namaste,
Lee

ps - My thanks to Hayden Thorne for sharing this with me, so I could share it with all of you!

Where The Magic Happens

Simple.  Profound.  Thought-provoking.

Keep your safety in mind, but consider:  where can you move out of your comfort zone to experience the magic?

I'll be thinking about it all weekend.  How about you?

Namaste,
Lee


ps - my thanks to Jasmine Love, Director of Multiculturalism and Inclusion at Chadwick School in Palos Verdes, California, for letting me know about this diagram!

pps - I found a number of versions of this online, and this was my favorite.  I couldn't track it back to its creator, but happily one of my readers, author A.C.E. Bauer, did.  Credit where credit is due, this image was created by Jessica Hagy, the artist who draws Indexed)  My thanks to A.C.E. and Jessica!

Omar Sharif Jr. (grandson of the famous actor) Comes Out as Gay and Half-Jewish, and asks if there's a place for him in the New Egypt

Omar Sharif, Jr. as photographed in his coming out story in the Advocate

In this amazing open letter/essay published in the Advocate, Omar writes:

"I write this article in fear.  Fear for my country, fear for my family, and fear for myself.  My parents will be shocked to read it, surely preferring I stay in the shadows and keep silent, at least for the time being. 

But I can't.

...That my mother is Jewish is no small disclosure when you are from Egypt, no matter the year.  And being openly gay has always meant asking for trouble, but perhaps especially during this time of political and social upheaval.  With the victories of several Islamist parties in recent elections, a conversation needs to be had and certain questions need to be raised.  I ask myself:

Am I welcome in the new Egypt?

Will being Egyptian, half Jewish, and gay forever remain mutually exclusive identities?  Are they identities to be hidden?"

It's brave, and awesome, and I applaud Omar for Standing Up for himself and others!

Namaste,
Lee

Gender 101, Episode 23: Meet Nenu

Our Gender Queer Friend Lucy, a.k.a. Benji, continues the conversation about gender with Nenu Cruz, who explains their own journey with gender, and introduces us to the term "Maribri."




Here's that amazing image of Maribri again, and my thanks to artist Cindy Segura for allowing me to share it with you all!

Maribri

"A Maribri is a hybrid that transforms into their own image without limits or expectations.  The mix of a Mariposa (butterfly) and Colibri (hummingbird).  The hybrid of masculinity and femininity and neither.  A third gender that wants to be liberated from the social construct roles and their own."
- Nenu

I'm so glad to have met Nenu!

Namaste,
Lee

ps- my apologies for the video quality being so inconsistent.

"Zero" - a picture book about finding value in yourself and others

"Zero" by Kathryn Otoshi

"Zero" is the follow up picture book to "One," also told in the same simplicity on the surface, depth and heart within storytelling style.

Zero is a big round number.   When she looks at herself, she just sees a hole right through her center.

 She admires the other numbers who can count.  She wants to count, too,

 but she wonders, how can a number worth nothing become something?

Zero's search to find value in herself and others is uplifting and inspiring.

It's another picture book I wish had been read to me when I was a little kid.

...And another book that's great for the youngest kids up through adults!

Namaste,
Lee

ps- my thanks to Essia Cartoon-Fredman, the librarian at Pressman Academy in Los Angeles, for telling me about "Zero." 

One - a picture book about bullying for the youngest kids!

ONE by Kathryn Otoshi

This picture book is brilliant.

Personified colors interact.  Red (a red dot) teases Blue (a blue dot), and makes Blue feel small.

The other colors are afraid to stand up to Red, who gets bigger and bigger.

When someone new comes along, the titular ONE, and Red tries to bully them, too, something different happens.  ONE stands up. 

How all the colors (including Blue) learn to stand up to Red, and how Red figures out they can do things differently is the heart of this beautiful story.

"ONE" would be a great conversation-starter (and read-aloud) about bullying and standing up for yourself and others.  It would work for pre-schoolers all the way up to bigger kids.  Heck, I'm an adult, and I loved it, too.

The art is beautiful - and like the story, seems simple but there's so much heart to discover in it.

"ONE" is a picture book I wish had been read to me when I was a little kid.

It's a book you should get, and share, and discuss.

Namaste,
Lee

ps- my thanks to Essia Cartoon-Fredman, the librarian at Pressman Academy in Los Angeles, for telling me about "One," and how they've used it as a read-aloud with their Kindergarteners.

Stand For The Silent - A Powerful Anti-Bullying School Presentation

Featured in the upcoming movie BULLY, Ty Smalley was 11 when, after years of being picked on and bullied, he finally had enough and physically reacted to his bully's taunts.  Ty was caught for 'fighting'.  Suspended from school.  And he killed himself.

Ty Smalley

Ty's parents Kirk and Laura have made it their mission to stop this epidemic of bullying, and they're taking action through STAND FOR THE SILENT.

I was fortunate to attend Kirk's assembly program at a Los Angeles Middle School this week.  It was powerful, and wrenching.

Kirk had the kids on his side, supporting him as he told the story of his son, and of other children like Ty who took their own lives because of bullying.

He asked for a show of hands, who there had ever been bullied.  Every single person raised their hand.

He asked for another show of hands, who there had even been a bully.  Four hands went up.

He told us that every seven seconds, someone is bullied in our world.

There's work to do.

And then, he got the entire auditorium of 800 plus students to take this pledge out loud:

"From this day forward I promise to respect those around me as well as respect myself.  I am somebody, and I can make a difference.  I can make another feel loved.  I can be the helping hand that leads another back to a path of hope and aspiration.  I will not stand silent as others try to spread hatred through my community.  Instead, I pledge to lift up these victims, and show them that their life matters.  I will be the change, because I am somebody."

It was such a powerful moment.

Kirk spoke with passion and deep emotion, and I cheer him on.  We need all our voices raised to empower children and teens to stop bullying and make their world - our world - better.

Here's a CNN story on Kirk - and in it you can see how raw and honest he's able to be about his loss, and the promise he made to his son on the Father's Day after Ty's death, that he'd stop this from happening to another child.







So let's do it. Let's stand with Kirk. And let's Stand For The Silent.

Let's each of us do everything we can to end bullying.


Namaste,
Lee

Angel Diary - a teen transgender graphic novel series

Angel Diary, vol. 1

by Kara and Lee Yuh-Hee

Princess Dong-Young was originally a boy, but had to become a girl to accept a betrothal to the Emperor of the Underworld.  Unable to accept her future with the Demon King, she realizes that her only choice is to run away.  Her plan is to join the human world disguised as a schoolboy!  Now all of the Gods from Heaven and Hell are searching high and low on the Earth trying to make sure that a wedding happens.

There's a great description of all 13 volumes in the series here.


My thanks to Robin Fosdick, the amazing librarian at the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library in Oregon for her amazing Teen GLBTQ graphic novels list, which is where I found out about this series.

Add your review of the Angel Diary graphic novel series in comments!

Gender 101, Episode #22: Community Insurance

I'm very excited to continue the conversation about Gender with Frankie Palacios.

In this episode, Frankie shares about their fundraising efforts for their partner's top surgery... and the concept of "community insurance."



VERY cool.

Namaste,
Lee

Marlborough School's Alliance Club's "Gay Of The Week" Is... Me!

The white board at Marlborough School showing me as their Alliance Gay of the Week!

I loved going to Marlborough School in Los Angeles last week and presenting my Smashing Stereotypes! Workshop to a psychology class of 11th and 12th graders, sharing my SAFE SPACE: Ending Anti-Gay Bullying in our Culture... and at YOUR School Assembly with the entire 8th grade, meeting with the school's Gay-Straight Alliance club, and then working with the wonderful librarians to pull books from their collection and set up a special display to encourage students to read deeper and broader - books about GLBTQ teens, books about teens who are like the students themselves, and books about teens who are different from them - so they can see and internalize our shared humanity.

An absolute highlight was my lunchtime Q&A with Marlborough's Alliance.  The students had prepared lots of questions in advance, and the discussion was fantastic.

Dr. Banner, the club's faculty advisor, wrote after my visit to share the news with me:

I thought you'd like to hear that at our meeting on Friday, you were unanimously voted the Alliance Gay of the Week. This places you in the august company of Vonn Walker, Ellen DeGeneres, Zachary Quinto, Dan Savage, and Albus Dumbledore, some of our past honorees. :)

I am incredibly honored.

Being named Marlborough's Alliance Gay of the Week has made my year.

Thank you, students of Alliance!

Namaste,
Lee

Fighting Homophobia in Professional Ice Hockey

Patrick Burke and his father Brian are working to change the "casual homophobia" in professional Ice Hockey.  Patrick's brother Brendan came out as gay a year before he died in a car accident in 2010.




This ad features

Rick Nash of the Columbus Blue Jackets; Duncan Keith of the Chicago Blackhawks; Brian Boyle of the New York Rangers; Matt Moulson of the New York Islanders; Joffrey Lupul of the Toronto Maple Leafs; Claude Giroux of the Philadelphia Flyers; Daniel Alfredsson of the Ottawa Senators; Scott Hartnell of the Philadelphia Flyers; Corey Perry  of the Anaheim Ducks; Andy Greene of the New Jersey Devils; Dion Phaneuf of the Toronto Maple Leafs; and Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers.

Patrick Burke hopes You Can Play can help achieve his late brother's dreams for the sport in every level: That it becomes a place of acceptance, support and safety for gay athletes, to the point that one day an openly gay player can compete for a National Hockey League team without incident and feeling secure about it.

Because as long as they can play, they can play.

It's a great article, and a great campaign. 

Namaste,
Lee

ps - My thanks to Heather for sharing this with me, so I could share it with all of you!

"We Put Fear And Prejudice On Trial and Fear And Prejudice Lost" 8: A Play About The Fight For Marriage Equality

This is remarkable.

Screen captures show some of the stars of "8"

Last Saturday, the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) and Broadway Impact presented the West Coast premiere reading of the play “8” before a sold-out crowd in Los Angeles and a worldwide audience watching on YouTube.

“8” is an unprecedented account of the Federal District Court trial in Perry v. Schwarzenegger (now Perry v. Brown), the case filed by AFER to overturn Proposition 8, which stripped gay and lesbian Californians of the fundamental freedom to marry.

“This play will continue to show Americans—one by one—that truth and justice can prevail over prejudice and fear,” said AFER Board President Chad Griffin.  “Try as they might, the anti-marriage proponents of Proposition 8 cannot hide their discriminatory arguments from the American people.  The fight to secure marriage equality is at the heart of our generation’s search for greater freedom—this play shows why.”

Dustin Lance Black, who penned the Academy Award-winning feature film Milk and the film J. Edgar, based “8” on the actual words of the trial transcripts, first-hand observations of the courtroom drama and interviews with the plaintiffs and their families.  

Watch. (The performance starts 30 minutes in, and is about 90 minutes long.)



Witness.

And resolve to continue to fight for marriage equality.

Namaste,
Lee

"The Queer Art Of Failure" - How do you measure success? And can the Queer Community help us see Success in different terms?

The Queer Art of Failure by Judith (Jack) Halberstam

...at this moment, intense capitalist accumulation, we’re living with one model of success and failure and one model alone. And that model is, that to make money and to advance professionally is what it means to be successful, and everything else is failure. That’s given us a zero-sum model against which we can judge our achievements in life, and that’s very unfortunate, because it squashes out all kinds of people doing alternative things for alternative reasons that may be much more valuable to their communities and to the world. So if you’re absolutely dedicated to organic farming, recycling, playing in a punk band on the weekend, and blogging, and you do some temp work in your spare time, you’re making a big contribution to the world we live in but you are not able to feed into the model of success that we’ve set out. So the book suggests that in such a moment, the moment of Occupy Wall Street and the one percent and the 99%, we need better models of success and failure. We need to measure ourselves against different standards. And the book proposes that queer people have actually been doing this for a long time precisely because we quickly fall out of the prevailing model of success and failure by not managing to meet the standards of gender and sexuality set for us by our usually straight families. Therefore there might be insights into failure that come out of queer art and queer culture.

Jack Halberstam, speaking about the premise of their new book, "The Queer Art of Failure" in an interview with Sinclair Sexsmith at Lambda Literary.


Add your review of "The Queer Art of Failure" in comments!

Gender 101, Episode #21: Frankie's Gender Queer Heroes

Lucy continues the Gender 101 discussion with Frankie Palacios, asking about Frankie's Gender Queer Heroes.




Thanks, Frankie and Lucy!


Here's links to more information about:


My Princess Boy

Raja

Morrissey

The Facebook Event Page for the 16th Annual Smiths/Morrissey Convention of 2012

and

Freddie Mercury.


Namaste,
Lee

Getting Somewhere - Four teen girls get sent to a juvenile detention program on a farm run by a lesbian couple

Getting Somewhere by Beth Neff

Four girls: dealer, junkie, recluse, thief

Sarah, Jenna, Lauren, and Cassie may look like ordinary girls, but they're not.

They're delinquents whose lives collide when they're sent to an experimental juvenile detention program on a farm run by a lesbian couple... and it's in the middle of nowhere.

As the girls face up to the crimes they committed, three of them will heal the wounds of their pasts and discover strengths they never dreamed they had.

And one, driven by a deep secret of her own, will seek to destroy everything they've all worked so hard for.

Add your review of "Getting Somewhere" in comments!

Joy Nash's FAT RANT, and how we need to stand up for Fat people

This video is brilliant.





Fat people and the Queer Community are natural allies, as we're among the last of the groups it's still seen as "okay" to demonize.

Allies are incredibly important in the movement to create change, understanding and a culture where we get beyond talking of tolerating differences, or even accepting differences, but where we are CELEBRATING Differences.

It's important to consider where we can be allies for others in their struggles.

To ask ourselves and our GSA groups and our queer organizations,

How we can be UPstanders and not Bystanders when we see injustice against black people, or muslim people, or women, or fat people, or any other group that's targeted just for being themselves?

Like John Amaechi said, they're all heads of the same monster: prejudice.

And if we join forces against prejudice, we will be unstoppable.

Namaste,
Lee


ps - My Thanks to Adrienne for telling me about this amazing Fat Rant video!

pps - The prejudice against Fat people is everywhere - Just last month Disney launched their fat-shaming Habit Heroes website and exhibit.  And then they yanked it due to negative public response.

A movie about bullying in US Schools gets an R rating, preventing it from being seen by kids - and what YOU can do to help!

I've seen BULLY.

And I believe the movie's honest window into bullying can open eyes, get people talking, and contribute towards making things better - but not if it has an "R" rating and kids under 17 can't see it!

Here's the trailer (that's rated okay for "Appropriate Audiences")




Lee Hirsch, the movie's director, said about the "R" rating:

"I made BULLY for everyone to see, kids who are bullied, who bully, and the vast majority who are witnesses ...those kids can make change by speaking up, becoming upstanders instead of bystanders. We have to change hearts and minds in order to stop this epidemic, which affects more than 13 million young lives a year in our country. The stark realities of bullying are that kids say terrible things to each other...and kids in junior and senior high-school use profanity. ~~ It is devastating that the MPAA, in adhering to a strict limit on certain words, would prevent this film from being seen by those who need its message the most...."

There was an appeal to the ratings board. It was rejected.

As the Bully Project wrote, an R rating

"could potentially ban the very students who are on the front lines of America's bullying epidemic from seeing the film unless accompanied by a parent or guardian. Clearly, this is unacceptable."


Katy, a high school student from Ann Arbor, Michigan launched an online petition on change.org urging the MPAA to reconsider. In less than 24 hours more than 100,000 people had signed on - but they still need more signatures!

The movie is set to debut March 30, 2012.

Add your voice.

Let's get this movie seen, and let's get people talking about bullying, and how to stop it.

***UPDATE MARCH 5, 2012***

They've gotten over 200,000 signatures so far, and Katy is planning "to deliver the signatures to the MPAA personally."

You can still sign!

***

UPDATE APRIL 5, 2012

The movie is slightly edited (to remove three of the six uses of the F-word) and the MPAA gives BULLY a PG-13 rating!

success!

***

Namaste,
Lee

U.S. Marine's Gay Homecoming Kiss

Check out this kiss between Brandon Morgan and his partner Dalan Wells when Brandon came home.

It was posted on the Facebook Gay Marines page and in 3 days got over 36,000 likes and more than 8,000 commments. It was written about on Joe. My. God. (a site with adult content and language. You can see the post here) and The Huffington Post.

Brandon's reported response to all the comments:

"To everyone who has responded in a positive way. My partner and I want to say thank you. Dalan, the giant in the photo, can't believe how many shares and likes we have gotten on this. We didn't do this to get famous, or something like that we did this cause after 3 deployments and four years knowing each other, we finally told each other how we felt. As for the haters, let em hate...to quote Kat Williams, everyone needs haters, so let them hate. We are the happiest we have ever been and as for the whole PDA and kissing slash hugging in uniform...it was a homecoming, if the Sergeants Major, Captains, Majors, and Colonels around us didn't care...then why do you care what these random people have to say? In summation thank you for your love and support. I received a lot of friend requests off this. I don't just accept requests so if your request was because of this post message me and let me know. Goodnight all, and Semper Fi." --Brandon Morgan

Pretty awesome.

You can watch an interview with Brandon and Dalan here.



Namaste,
Lee